Reaver
Overview
Reavers are the shock troops, the first ones into battle, the ultimate creeps in close-quarter combat. Reavers spend a lot of their time dead due to these reasons, but if they can reach point blank range, they will frequently leave behind a dead freep.
Skills
| Skill | Effect | Cost | Duration | Cooldown |
| Blinding Dust (R0) | +20% miss chance, AoE: 4 | 68P | 30s | 1m |
| Blood Lust (R6) | -10% auto-attack duration, +3% melee critical chance | 50M | 45s | 1m |
| Charge! (R3) | Sets run speed to 200%, makes you immune to all CC but not to CJs | 68P | 8s | 30s |
| Devastating Strike (R0) | 471 Common, has higher base crit chance than any reaver melee skill | 389P | 1m | |
| Disarm (R2) | Disarms opponent's melee weapon | 89P | 5s | 1m |
| Glory in Victory (R0) | +10% melee damage, +10% incoming melee damage. +189M initially, +189M every 4s | 68P | 1m 30s; 20s | 30s |
| Gut Punch (R5) | 228 Common, interrupt | 68P | 15s | |
| Hamstring (R0) | 25% slow | 68P | 15s | 10s |
| Jagged Cut (R0) | 244 Common, AoE: 4 | 106P | 5s | |
| Lacerate (R0) | 264 Common, 69 Common every 2s | 58P | 20s | 8s |
| Mutilation (R12) | 244 Common, 64 Common every 2s, AoE: 4 |
233P | 10s | 20s |
| Ravage (R4) | 264 Common, 198 Common, 198 Common | 106P | 4s | |
| Serration (R3) | 330 Common, AoE: 4 | 106P | 15s | |
| Severing Strike (R7) | 330 Common, cannot be missed, blocked, or parried | 106P | 1m | |
| Sudden Strikes (R0) | 211 Common, 158 Common | 58P | ||
| Sundering Blow (R1) | 228 Common, -2,334 armour | 89P | 1m | 10s |
| Thrash (R13) | On disarmed target: 264 Common, 247 Common, 247 Common | 58P | 5m | |
| Time-Out (R6) | +300 ICPR, +120-140 power | 50M | 45s | 1m |
| Upper Hand (R9) | -1300 block, -1300 parry to target. +488 armour to self | 68P | 15s; 15s | 45s |
| Wrath (R8) | Drained of 50% of current morale, adds 75% of amount drained to power | 30s |
A special note about Glory in Victory: All reavers should be aware that with the latest update (Volume III: Allies of the King, Book 1: Oath of the Rangers, which went live on March 1, 2010), Glory in Victory now heals for +217M initially and +217M every 4s as long as the reaver has obtained all of his damage passives and has no + or - damage corruptions slotted. (If the reaver has obtained all of his damage passives and has four + damage and no - damage corruptions slotted, GiV heals for +245M initially and +245M every 4s. Unfortunately, only the +damage passives and +damage corruptions increase the amount of the self-heal from Glory in Victory. That is to say, neither the +5% overall damage buff you can get from the NPC in the TA quest room in exchange for destiny points, nor the +10% melee damage buff a reaver gets while under the effect of GiV, nor the +25% melee damage buff a reaver gets while under the effect of a WL's Aura of Command have such an effect.)
Furthermore, the latest update also increases the tactical crit and dev crit percentages for a reaver who slots both Rage of the Misbegotten and Flayer of Flesh (see the Racial Traits section below) from 5.7% and 1.8% to 8.3% and 2.6%, respectively -- which represents an increase of about 45.6% on the tactical crit chance and about 44.4% on the tactical dev crit chance. (Note: If you do not slot either of those orc racial traits, your tactical crit and dev crit percentages remain the same as before.) Since reavers do not do any tactical damage, this would seem to be irrelevant. However, the magnitude of each tick of the self-heal from Glory in Victory depends on the reaver's tactical crit and dev crit percentages. Therefore, these changes provide a slight added benefit to a Rank 7+ reaver under the effect of GiV.
Class Traits
| Trait | Effect | Cost | Duration | Cooldown | Rating |
| Advanced Skill: Against the Odds (R10) | +320-340M, +320-340P, resets cooldown on many skills | 68P | 15m | 4/5 | |
| Advanced Skill: Resilience (R5) | Removes all CC except snares and CJs | 68P | 1m | 5/5 | |
| Burning Blades (R4) | Changes all damage to fire | 5/5 | |||
| Enhanced Skill: Devastating Strike (R2) | -30s Devastating Strike recovery time | 389P | 30s | 4/5 | |
| Enhanced Skill: Glory in Victory (R2) | -10% melee damage penalty when enraged | 68P | 1m 30s | 30s | 2/5 |
| Enhanced Skill: Hamstring (R15) | -2s Hamstring recovery time, increases slow from 25% to 30% | 68P | 15s | 8s | 2/5 |
| Enhanced Skill: Jagged Cut (R0) | +25% chance of 69 Common every 2s | 106P | 12s | 5s | 1/5 |
| Enhanced Skill: Upper Hand (R14) | Increases magnitude of parry and evade reductions on target, makes those debuffs last longer | 68P | ?? | 45s | 3/5 |
| Extended Reach (R11) | +1 AoE targets | 2/5 | |||
| Power Boost (R0) | +10% power | 1/5 | |||
| Quick Strikes (R0) | -10% auto-attack duration | 2/5 | |||
| Resistance Boost (R1) | +780 to Song, Cry, Physical, and Tactical resistance ratings | 4/5 |
Slotting the Resistance Boost class trait increases all four resistance ratings by 780, resulting in a 12.6% resist rate for Song/Physical and 11.8% resist rate for Cry/Tactical (see the Recommended Corruption Traits section below, which discusses the increased resistances for reavers in the latest update). I think all reavers should now strongly consider slotting Resistance Boost to gain more than double the previous levels of protection against attacks from minstrels (many of whom are still running around in war-speech), LMs, and RKs.
Racial Traits
| Trait | Effect | Cost | Duration | Cooldown | Rating |
| Advanced Skill: Blood of Fire (R6) | Reflects 39 damage back to your attacker on any attack | 68P | Toggle | 1m 30s | 5/5 |
| Advanced Skill: Dying Rage (R9) | Sets run speed to 200%, +50% melee damage, immunity to all CC except root and snares (and possibly CJs), +100% parry, -100% auto-attack duration, +2650 to the reaver's melee, ranged, and tactical defense ratings, resets most offensive skills, reaver is automatically defeated on skill expiration | 68P | 15s | 10m | 4/5 |
| Flayer of Flesh (R10) | +520 melee critical rating, +520 tactical critical rating, +260 (1%) to melee and tactical damage ratings | 5/5 | |||
| Front-Line Fodder (R5) | +260 parry, +260 block, +260 evade | 3/5 | |||
| Rage of the Misbegotten (R7) | +260 melee critical rating, +260 tactical critical rating, increases maximum morale by 10% | 5/5 | |||
| Tireless Warrior (R11) | +300 ICMR, +300 ICPR | 3/5 | |||
| Warrior Against the Deep (R8) | +390 Ancient Dwarf mitigation, +2 stealth detection | 1/5 |
Recommended Corruption Traits
There are a couple of different ways to go about this.
- High mitigations - Boost defenses and health for more survivability
- High resistances - Boosts resistances to shake off more CC and to resist more incoming tactical attacks. The point is to at least get into range of the target before dying. Of significance here is the fact that in the latest update, all resistances for reavers, who have the lowest default resistance rates of any creep class (only two boxes at Rank 9+), have been improved. For Song and Physical attacks, the reaver's resistance rates have been increased from 1579 (5.8%) to 2944 (10.2%). Likewise, for Cry and Tactical attacks, the reaver's resistance rates have been increased from 1309 (4.8%) to 2674 (9.4%) -- which is an 86.4% increase for Song/Physical and a 95.9% increase for Cry/Tactical.
- There has also been something of a debate on whether power should be dropped for health and damage. The trade off is less power for burst damage which equates to about one additional sudden strike. Even with the massive reduction in reaver ICPR that first came with Mines of Moria, sacrificing power for morale and/or damage is a good idea for a reaver, as you'll typically be dead before you run out of power, and you can always use Time-Out or pop a power pot if you need one in a long fight.
Tactics
[Vyxe, Elendilmir]
The premier reaver tactic is the "in and out", watching your fellow creeps for their movements and when a freep is vulnerable, then charging in and burning Sunder Armor, Blinding Dust if needed, Hamstring if needed, Sudden Strikes till the target is down to 50% then Devastating Strike and GETTING OUT. Spend as little time in close combat as possible unless you have quite a few healers or a bubble. Reavers have great burst damage but no strong sustained DPS, so burn the power out then fall back if alive to recharge. Don't release if you have done considerable damage to the freeps because the target might get killed very shortly.
For consumables, even with Resilience slotted, you will want a very full set of pots constantly. CC is the primary reason why you will not do any damage. You will fail to get into range. With Siege of Mirkwood, however, snares and CJs are the biggest concerns.
For solo tactics
- Champions - It's a DPS vs DPS fight. Disarm if at all possible and debuff with Blinding Dust. If they are running fervor, you win vs most of them. Keep circling and jumping through them to break up their attacks. If they reheal, run away if your health isn't good.
- Burglers - Good luck, if a burgler puts on evade, try to delay till it runs out 30 seconds later. Hamstring to keep them at arms length during this time. Everything depends on things not working well for the burgler and the dice rolling well for the reaver to win this fight.
- Guardian - Maintain sunder at all times. This is a very long fight, try to avoid as much damage as possible from the guardian even if it's low. It will take all of your morale to beat them down. Do what you can to stay on their back side to negate block and parry.
- Minstrels - Run, even with Gut Punch they will outheal any damage you do to them
- Loremasters - Unless they're sleeping they'll punch right through your pots and Resilience and shut you down. Even if their health can be taken down under 1k, they will nearly always have Wisdom of the Council up for a massive reheal, they'll have another one if it's a man loremaster. Save the pots for the mezzes and roots instead of using them on the stuns. If it's reasonable, try to kill Lynx's if they are out, they have strong burst damage.
- Hunter - Use trees and other obstacles to your advantage to close the distance, run in circles around them and do your best to kill them before they decide to DF.
- Captain - These are like guardians with less armor and more DPS. They will fire Last Stand if low, just back off for 15 seconds (25 if traited, which is usual) and wait for it to go down. Keep a hamstring on them to prevent them from either running at or away from you. Keep a sunder up and ignore any herald if up.
In raid situations, the Raid Leader should try to get the reavers engaged in 'waves' and either keep them in there, or pull them out to be rehealed. If reavers charge individually or in small groups into a freep raid, they are readily destroyed. The shock value of every reaver hitting the freeps at one time is far higher and has better payoffs. Call for a melee extraction when you want to pull them out for another subsequent strike. This also offers the benefit of letting them get charge up again when out of combat and to retarget. When fighting balled up freeps, make sure that the reavers are throwing their dust around and aoe'ing to keep everything in combat. Remember also that their charge breaks traps and they should be the first ones charging ahead of the raid into the freeps to clear the way.
[Hywelbane, Elendilmir]
Here are a few additional tips for reavers. If you've got two or more BAs in your group, begin attacking each new focus-fire target with Sundering Blow, since it increases the incoming common damage considerably. On LMs, the moment they hit half health disarm them if possible, thus preventing them from popping their big heal. Disarm also works wonders against RKs. When you're on a minstrel, spam Gut Punch as often as you can. Against guardians, champs, and burgs, always use Blinding Dust and, if you're rank 9 or higher, make sure you use your one and only parry/evade debuff, Upper Hand. Unfortunately, Upper Hand is on a rather long 45 second cooldown and is subject to a wound resistance check like all reaver debuffs, so don't be surprised if it misses. (By the way, the Rank 13 triple-attack skill Thrash, which can only be used on a target which has first been disarmed, appears to be horrible, since the tooltip damage is a mere 100 more than a garden-variety Ravage, which reavers get at Rank 4. However, in light of its very high rank requirement, very long cooldown (5 minutes), and the wording of its tooltip (which states that the skill can do "very high damage"), it is possible that it has an increased chance to crit, along the lines of Devastating Strike. Since there are no Rank 13 reavers in the game at this time, this is possibly only an educated guess/wishful thinking.) Also, be aware that Dust, Disarm, and Upper Hand can all be potted out of or removed by certain freep class skills/abilities. (Still, you can sometimes use this to your advantage by inducing your target to burn a pot then using a second skill.) But above all, be prepared to Die HorriblyTM early and often in the service of Sauron.
The changes to Dying Rage that came with the latest update are major enhancements to the skill, as: (1) freeps will no longer be able to completely nullify Dying Rage by kiting or slowing the reaver for the duration of the skill; (2) the reaver now has some protection (although not a great amount) from incoming ranged and tactical attacks; and (3) the reaver now has some protection from incoming melee attacks that cannot be parried (champs and hunters have a couple of skills like this) and melee attacks from behind. As a result, I expect that Rank 9+ reavers will use it much more often than they do now. (At this time, I do not know if the new Dying Rage grants reavers any immunity to CJs. I sincerely doubt it, though.)
One other thing: The +morale passives and corruptions cause the maximum morale buffs you can buy with DP to add more than the listed value. For instance, using the 30-minute +246 maximum morale buff increases the morale of a Rank 10+ reaver with a typical corruption setup from 8,940 to 9,370, as opposed to the 9,186 you would otherwise expect. (The same is true of the power and damage buffs you can buy with DP, as +power and +damage passives and corruptions also take you slightly over the listed values.) So use them whenever possible, particularly since they do not expire upon defeat.